All of God's creatures have rights, a fact that most people don't seem to
recognize. This includes both human and non-human animals, but not all of them
can speak for themselves. As we continue to disregard the value of the lives of the billions of animals we eat, we also are
destroying our air, land and water.

FROM

What the focus on eating local and/or humane animal
products overlooks is the massive inefficiency and waste of resources
inherent in cycling plant proteins through animals in order to eat the
animals — from whom we obtain only a small fraction of the total available
protein and calories when compared to consuming plant foods directly.

Consider that even with more than 98% of all farmed animals in the U.S.
currently being raised by intensive methods — that is, using very little
space and land per animals — still some 44%, or nearly half of all the land
in the U.S., is devoted to rangeland, pasture, or other grazing lands.

With 95 million cattle, we would need, by the most conservative
estimates, 250 million acres to convert all U.S. dairy and beef operations
to pastured systems. That’s more than 10% of all the land in the U.S.

And that’s just cows. Nearly all of the nine billion chickens used for
meat and eggs in the U.S. are confined indoors. We would need astronomically
more land than actually exists to pasture even half of these chickens and
the millions of pigs, sheep, goats, and turkeys currently being raised in
confinement operations.

Legend:
O = Organic is better (based on lower use or emission)
I = Inorganic is better (based on lower use or emission)
N = No significant difference
This chart is reprinted from
Meatonomics by Dave Simon.

Animal agriculture is a main driver of human-caused climate change.

The United Nations has noted that the “livestock sector” is responsible
for more greenhouse gas emissions than ALL transportation combined.

Yet environmental specialists critique the United Nations reports as
conservative and conclude that animal farming is responsible for at least 51
percent of human-caused greenhouse gases.

The increased land use necessary to more “humanely” farm animals often
results in even higher emissions of harmful GHGs.

It’s estimated that grass-fed cows produces up to four times more methane
than grain-fed cows. Methane is 25-72x stronger greenhouse gas than carbon
dioxide. This is basic biology because of the digestion processes needed to
breakdown the fiber in forage. The climate impact is made worse because cows
fatten more slowly on grass than on grain, thus pastured cows take
significantly longer to reach slaughter weight than feedlot cows, emitting
more methane and nitrous-oxide along the way.

In general, unconfined animals gain weight more slowly than confined
animals because they are allowed more movement. Organically-raised animals
grow even more slowly because they aren’t permitted growth-promoting
hormones or antibiotics.

What the focus on eating local and/or humane animal products overlooks is
the massive inefficiency and waste of resources inherent in cycling plant
proteins through animals in order to eat the animals — from whom we obtain
only a small fraction of the total available protein and calories when
compared to consuming plant foods directly.

Most of the energy/calories animals consume is used to fuel their own
physiological processes. Beyond that, it takes up to one hundred times more
water and eleven times more fossil fuel to produce animal protein than equal
amounts of plant protein.

Organic cattle require 10 percent less water than
inorganic but still need 2.7 million gallons each during their lives, enough
to fill 130 residential swimming pools. In light of the orders-of-magnitude
difference in water needed to raise plant and animal protein, does a 10
percent savings for organic cattle really matter?

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